Mike Passes on Johnson Vote For Abortion Reasons

Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – For those of you that think that we have been shilling and promoting third party and promoting Gary Johnson simply because we have covered him and giving him some respect — he is running for the office of the presidency.  As I said, this gentleman is a major player and should have been a more major player in this.  I just think it’s fair that you should have all the information that you can have at your disposal to make your decision.  Johnson will not be my choice.  It is because of the choice, because of his position on abortion.  I understand where he’s coming from.  I can respect people that have that position, but that doesn’t mean that I have to vote for him and that I have to support him.  Let me just get that out. For the rest check out today’s transcript…

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike:  I know a lot of people have made it fashionable to say who they’re going to vote for and promote them out front and open.  I am not going to tell you who I am going to pull the lever for, although many of you suspect — I did want to say this.  I’ll drop some major hints.  Many of you suspect that I’m a shill and have been a shill for Gary Johnson.  Just because I like Governor Johnson, and just because Governor Johnson has what I think is the best of the track records of all the governors that ran for the GOP nomination, that’s a slam dunk.  That’s not even debatable.  Still, he’s on the Libertarian Party ticket.  I cannot vote for Johnson simply because my pro-life convictions won’t let me.  I can’t do it.

For those of you that think that we have been shilling and promoting third party and promoting Gary Johnson simply because we have covered him and giving him some respect — he is running for the office of the presidency.  As I said, this gentleman is a major player and should have been a more major player in this.  I just think it’s fair that you should have all the information that you can have at your disposal to make your decision.  Johnson will not be my choice.  It is because of the choice, because of his position on abortion.  I understand where he’s coming from.  I can respect people that have that position, but that doesn’t mean that I have to vote for him and that I have to support him.  Let me just get that out.  AG, are you surprised by that?

AG:  Not entirely.  There are also a bunch of articles talking about the role that abortion has played in the 2012 election.  It’s interesting to see each candidate take a stance on the issue and try to, not necessarily parse or be understanding, but it’s played a very interesting role the past couple months.  With Governor Johnson’s stance, I’m not shocked by your decision.  I wouldn’t’ say I’m shocked, no.

Mike:  As I said, that doesn’t have any reflection on the rest of his record or anything else that he’s done.  I just can’t do it, can’t, in good conscience, support that.  Just a little footnote for some of you that have been sniping at our heels for the last eight weeks.  Paul is in Illinois next.  Paul, how are you?

Caller Paul:  I’m doing good, Mike.  I can’t tell you how much I love your show.  You have got the absolute best guests on I have ever heard.  I voted for Gary Johnson.  Originally, of course, I’m in the Ron Paul camp.  It was kind of hard to pull the lever for him because I’m Catholic.  I understand the five unnegotiables and all that in our doctrine.  After looking at where Gary actually stood, wanting to bring the issue to the state level, and seeing the games that the neocons have played over the years using this issue, which is not going to go away, and seeing Mitt’s stance on flip flopping, I just could not put faith in Mitt that he would do the right thing for the unborn.  I knew if we brought it down to a state level, it’s something we could make disappear within a year or two.  My conscience led me to vote for Gary Johnson in this election.  That might be different with the next election.  Those are my thoughts, Mike.

Mike:  Paul, I’m not going to sit here and tell you you need to reevaluate your conscience or reevaluate your vote and try and dissuade you out of how you arrived at your decision.  I simply am stating and promoting the idea that there are not enough — to me anyway from where I sit and view this — there is not enough devotion and I would say implementation of a principled point of view through a principled life.  What I mean by that is it’s great someone says, “I’m a principled person.  Why can’t they just stick to their principles.  We ought to be electing men of principles.”

As my buddy Winston Elliott points out at The American Conservative magazine today, government is nothing more than a tool.  Men need government.  I wrote back to him and said you’re spot on here.  The reason we have government is to protect our lives and our properties.  It is so that we can have legal protections for the things that we think are good, and legal means to deal with the things that we think are bad.  Outside of that, the rest is left to civil society to work out amongst ourselves.  When we have uncivilized men who see an impregnated woman as nothing more than an inconvenience that needs to be dealt with, as some sort of a medical inconvenience, that is a major problem for a civilization.  How can it be a civilization?  You are, in a civilizational sense, saying that some members of the next generation don’t count, some members of the next generation we can do without.  If we’re not doing things for the future, then what are we doing them for?  I just can’t support, not in any way materially support, anyone or people that express a point of view that makes life some matter of convenience.  It’s not a convenience.

We are commanded by a higher law, my view, to protect life not only those of us around, those that have been born, those that have yet to be born, and to also try to do what we can to protect life and respect it elsewhere, which is why I really like Jack Hunter’s piece that he posted last week at The Daily Caller and a couple other websites about you can’t be pro-life if you’re pro-drone.  These things have consequences.  I just don’t think we have enough men of good Christian virtue and gentleman, statesman-like qualities to say that all of these things are wrong.  Why are we voting on any of these things?  You’re voting on life?  The child hasn’t committed any crime.  It’s not the unborn child or yet-to-be-born child’s fault that the means of conception were not as all players wanted them to be.

I just think that for long enough, many of us have talked a good game but don’t actually live our lives and try to implement them and live the good game.  That’s not to say that you didn’t do that, Paul.  I’m just saying for me, that was the determining factor.  I was leaning, probably was going to vote for Governor Johnson, but on a lot of prayer and a lot of thoughtful consideration, because of that, can’t do it.  That’s the sole reason for my decision.  As I said, I’m not going to tell you who I’m going to vote for, but I wanted to get that part of it out there.

End Mike Church Show Transcript

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